When I comment on Patterico’s Pontifications, I use the ‘handle’ “The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana,” because one of the site authors is named Dana and I have to distinguish myself from her, but recreational pharmaceuticals is where I depart from libertarianism, for one reason, and one reason only. My darling bride — of 42 years, 4 months, and 15 days — was a pediatric nurse, and she has told me, many times, that she has never seen a case of child abuse — and they have to be hospitalization-serious enough for her to have seen them — in which drug and/or, usually and, alcohol abuse was not a factor. Since the vast majority of adults wind up, at some point, responsible for the care of children, legalizing drugs is a huge risk factor.

Legalize heroin to save lives

Our infatuation with prohibition, and our unease with drug use, is killing tens of thousands every year.

by Trevor Burrus^[1]Trevor Burrus is a research fellow in the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and editor‐in‐chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. | Monday, October 4, 2021

With 93,000 dead last year, America’s overdose crisis has reached new heights. Deaths were up 29% over 2019, which exceeded the expectations of many who anticipated a significant increase. More Americans die each year of overdoses than died in any war except the Civil War and World War II. Tragically, prohibition is the primary cause of these deaths, and we could save tens of thousands of lives next year if we legalized drugs, especially opiates.

Over the past decade, fentanyl has been the primary cause of overdoses, and prohibition is the main reason it has become so common in our drug supply. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is around 100 times more potent than heroin. Although it varies between users, the lethal dose of fentanyl is about three milligrams, which is just a few dozen grains. Users are increasingly unknowingly consuming drugs tainted with fentanyl, and their normal dose suddenly becomes lethal.

Prohibition caused this fentanyl-overdose epidemic for the same reason that those who smuggle alcohol into a sporting event prefer flasks to a 12-pack. When a substance has to be smuggled, the smuggler prefers the highest potency, smallest version. During alcohol prohibition, beer and wine almost disappeared from the market. And while spirits accounted for about 40% of alcohol sales before prohibition, that jumped to 90% after. The price of beer also rose an estimated 700%.

This is called the iron law of prohibition, and it works against the most optimistic goals of prohibitionists. Crack down on smuggling at the border and you won’t decrease the number of users, you’ll just increase the potency of the drug. Compulsive drug users aren’t suddenly “cured” by a lack of supply because prohibition primarily changes the nature of the drug supply, not whether the drug is available.

There’s a lot more at the original, but the basis of Mr Burrus’ article is that making the supply of heroin illegal doesn’t make the availability of illegal drugs non-existent, but simply that it channels them into criminal ventures, and that making heroin illegal has simply encouraged the abuse of fentanyl, which is 100 times more potent than heroin, and fentanyl is so potent that even a slight miscalculation can be lethal. Drug smugglers only have to bring in one percent of the previous mass, which makes things much easier for them.

But it isn’t just heroin he wants to legalize:

Whatever system we choose, legalizing heroin and fentanyl will immediately save lives. Street opiates are tainted and of uncertain potency, but pharmaceutical-grade opiates are perfectly safe to take in the proper amount. Doctors and nurses inject dangerous opiates into patients thousands of times per day, and they do it with confidence because they know what drug they are administering and how much to give. Recreational heroin users are capable of doing the same thing. After all, it’s their life.

Sorry, but I don’t equate the precision with which doctors and nurses can measure and administer prescribed pharmaceuticals with the capabilities of junkies. Mr Burrus himself noted, as quoted above, just how small a miscalculation would be lethal when it comes to fentanyl. There is no such thing as a responsible drug addict. The author undermined his own argument.

Mr Burrus’ concerns are not mine: he wants to make the world safer for junkies, make life easier for them; if he has any concern for the children for whom they are ultimately responsible, he didn’t include it in his OpEd.

Over the past couple of decades, we have seen several states ‘decriminalize’ the use of marijuana. ‘It’s not as bad as alcohol,’ they say, as though that’s somehow a point in their favor. I’ve seen, we’ve all seen, too many stoners to think it’s a wise idea, and now that that one drug is being decriminalized, we’re seeing calls for others to be decriminalized — and in Mr Burrus’ argument, completely legalized — as well. But the stoners can’t hold jobs, any more than alcoholics can, because it eventually gets to them. In my career in the ready-mixed concrete industry, I couldn’t even tell you how many drivers we lost because they used drugs. Given that there is no test for current intoxication for any of the recreational drugs other than alcohol, a driver can have an accident, have to take the whizz quiz, and show up ‘hot’ for marijuana or something else, even if he isn’t currently under the influence. The last thing we need is employees using legal drugs who are going to test positive for their use even when not under the influence, because if a driver rams another vehicle or runs over a worker or pedestrian, and he tests positive, the company will be sued into penury for allowing a driver who used such drugs behind the wheel of 36 tons of rolling death.

My home state of Kentucky leads the nation in one unfortunate category: we have the highest percentage of children being reared not by their parents but their grandparents, and drug addiction is almost always the reason for this. My nephew, who used to be an EMT in Lee County, Kentucky, has told me that the majority of his calls were for drug overdoses or other drug related problems. Legal or illegal, drug addicts cannot responsibly care for children, or be relied on to use contraception responsibly. Anything that encourages the use of recreational drugs encourages more poverty.

Were God to tap me on the shoulder and say, “OK, Dana, you get my power to change one thing,” I wouldn’t hesitate in my action: I would change the human brain to be immune to the effects of recreational drugs and alcohol.

We need to not only not legalize recreational drugs, not only keep the laws against them in place, but treat drug users and drug dealers far more harshly. Selling drugs should never be pled down to misdemeanors, but prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and the sentences should be life in prison without the possibility of parole. Drug use has to be punished as well, seriously enough that it’s a serious deterrent, and seriously enough that people know that the one strike they might get will be the last leniency they get.